Just to think, yesterday started out so well for the GOP. Politico’s lead story, posted at 5:05 a.m. yesterday was headline: “A Republican comeback?” and listed three ways that the Republicans could end their bad streak of luck. Of course, presciently, the story’s end:
Katia Bachko is on staff at The New Yorker.How the Republicans Could Blow It: They kill themselves — and their own
Republicans are often their most effective enemies. When they aren’t trying to push the Colin Powells of the world out of their party for failing ideological purity tests, they’re busy failing their purity tests themselves.
The list is long and keeps getting longer. John Ensign (R-Nev.), an outspoken family-values Christian, admits an affair with a staffer and a sordid financial relationship with her family. Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho), another conservative, destroys his political career with a foot tap in the men’s room. Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), another Christian conservative, admits “a very serious sin” after his name turns up in the D.C. Madam’s phone records.
You get the point.
Remember: Democrats made as much progress in 2006 out of GOP scandals as they did from GOP policy failures. But if Republicans keep matching their Democratic counterparts in the sin and vice department, they’ll be hard-pressed to ride a wave of scandal-fatigue back to majority status.
